Industry Collaboration Forum Speaker Bios
Vice Provost for Research and William Ziegler III Professor of Neuroscience and Professor of Ophthalmology and Visual Science
Dr. Crair obtained his doctoral degree in physics from the University of California, Berkeley, and did postdoctoral training in physics and neuroscience at Kyoto University and Kyoto Prefectural Medical School in Japan and in neuroscience at the University of California, San Francisco. He was a faculty member at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas before coming to Yale as a member of the Department of Neuroscience in 2007. He has directed Yale’s Vision Core Program, the Graduate Program in Neuroscience, was Deputy Chair of the Department of Neuroscience from 2015-2017, then Deputy Dean for Scientific Affairs at the School of Medicine from 2017-2020 when he became the Vice Provost for Research at Yale University.
President and Chief Executive Officer, QuantumCT
Dr. Green was appointed QuantumCT's inaugural President and Chief Executive Officer in March 2025. A successful physicist and entrepreneur, Dr. Green has over 30 years of experience at the intersection of technology, innovation, and corporate leadership. In additional to his professional background, Dr. Green has served on a variety of boards and councils, including on U.S. Department of Commerce Manufacturing Council, which advises the U.S. Secretary of Commerce on government policies and programs that affect U.S. manufacturing and provides a forum for proposing solutions to industry-related problems. He holds 26 patents in the areas of photonic systems, displays, and advanced materials. Dr. Green holds a B.S. in Physics from the University of Chicago and a Ph.D. in Physics from Stanford University.
University Executive Director, Corporate Strategy and Engagement
Kathy joined Yale in 2019 with more than 20 years of experience in industry partnerships, university-based research, cross cultural project management, training and development, and fundraising. In her current role, Kathy collaborates with faculty and other campus stakeholders to grow and sustain substantial mutually beneficial corporate partnerships that support Yale’s mission to improve the world through exceptional research and scholarship. Her team’s activities center around three strategies: business development, strategy and policy alignment, and communications and collaboration.
Eugene Higgins Professor of Physics and Applied Physics
Dr. Girvin joined the Yale faculty in 2001. In 2007 he was named Deputy Provost for Science and Technology and in 2015 became Deputy Provost for Research. He helped oversee entrepreneurship, innovation, and tech transfer at Yale. After completing his undergraduate degree in physics from Bates College, Girvin earned his Ph.D. from Princeton University and trained as a postdoctoral fellow at Indiana University and Chalmers University of Technology in Goteborg, Sweden. He works closely with the experimental team at Yale developing circuit QED into a practical architecture for the construction of a quantum computer.
VP and General Manager of Compute Products
As Vice President and General Manager of Compute Products at Quantinuum, Jennifer is responsible for the profit and loss (P&L) and overall general management and product delivery of our compute products which include InQuanto, H-Series Hardware (both cloud and HaaS) and Quantinuum Nexus. Jennifer brings 14 years of prior experience in the aerospace industry, with roles in offering management, product line management, operations, project management, and new product and technology development. She has 19 awarded patents and holds a doctorate degree in atomic physics.
Sterling Professor of Applied Physics and of Physics; Director of the Yale Quantum Institute; Chief Scientist and Co-Founder of Quantum Circuits, Inc.
Dr. Schoelkopf's research focuses on the development of superconducting devices for quantum information processing. His group is a leader in the development of solid-state quantum bits (qubits) for quantum computing, and the advancement of their performance to practical levels. His lab has produced many firsts in the field based on these ideas, including the development of a “quantum bus” for information, and the first demonstrations of quantum algorithms and quantum error correction with integrated circuits. A graduate of Princeton University, Schoelkopf earned his Ph.D. at the California Institute of Technology.
Commissioner, Department of Economic and Community Development
Chief Innovation Officer, State of Connecticut
Dan was nominated by Governor Ned Lamont as Commissioner of DECD in November 2023. He has served as Connecticut's first Chief Innovation Officer since July 2023. Prior to entering public service, Dan was a technology investor for 25 years, investing in high growth, innovative companies in the software, consumer and fintech markets, companies that went on to create tens of thousands of jobs. Dan holds an MBA with High Distinction (Baker Scholar) from Harvard Business School, where he served as President of its Alumni Board, and an AB from Brown University, where he serves on its President’s Leadership Council.
Vice President, Head of Science and Technology
Vishal is a leader in biomedical research and pharmaceutical development with expertise in human disease biology and translational medicine. Since 2016 at Pfizer, he has led teams focusing on innovative science to accelerate therapeutic development. Prior to his industry career, Vishal was an Associate Professor at Harvard Medical School, where his team made significant contributions to kidney disease research and co-founded Mediar Therapeutics. He holds graduate and postdoctoral training from the University of Louisiana, Monroe, and Harvard Medical School, Boston.
Director of Quantum Algorithm Engineering
Dr. Kyoseva leads a team developing cutting-edge hybrid quantum-classical algorithms leveraging NVIDIA's HPC architecture. Elica has expertise in quantum computing and its applications to drug discovery and human health. Prior to her role at NVIDIA, she led the Quantum for Bio program at Wellcome Leap, a $50 million effort aimed at showcasing quantum computing's potential in solving critical health challenges. Originally from Bulgaria, Elica earned her PhD in Quantum Optics from the University of Sofia. She spent time in academia as a postdoc at the Center for Quantum Technologies in Singapore and, subsequently, as a tenure-track assistant professor at the Singapore University of Technology and Design. Elica also spent a year at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as a Research Fellow.
John Gamble Kirkwood Professor of Chemistry
A member of the Yale faculty since 2001, Dr. Batista has served as a full professor of chemistry since 2008. He was director of undergraduate studies from 2008 to 2010 and was appointed as the John Randolph Huffman Professor of Chemistry in 2019, a position he held until his appointment as the John Gamble Kirkwood Professor of Chemistry in March 2022. He currently serves as a member of the Physical Sciences and Engineering Advisory Committee. More recently, he pioneered the use of quantum computing to study complex chemical reaction dynamics and the development of quantum algorithms to exploit quantum computing technology for chemistry research.
Physics PhD Candidate, Sochnikov Group
Ryan Laing is a physics PhD student working in Sochnikov Group at the University of Connecticut. They received their bachelor's in physics from the University of Dayton. Their current work is on the development of magnetic sensors and the characterization of novel superconductors with Scanning SQUID Microscopy.
Director of Venture Development
Vivek has extensive experience in private equity and venture capital investing, starting his career at Intellectual Ventures, a $6B fund based in Seattle. Before joining UConn, he was Managing Partner, New Ventures at Ventech Solutions where he focused on Private Equity transactions. He has extensive experience in medical device development, technology transfer, intellectual property management, and fund raising for early-stage companies.
PhD Candidate, Chemistry
Gregory is a National Science Foundation Fellow and Ph.D. candidate in Chemistry at Yale University. He is most known for developing multiple state-of-the-art deep learning methods for modeling protein-small molecule interactions. He will soon be joining Lila Sciences as a Machine Learning Scientist, where he will design and execute machine learning projects toward the realization of Scientific Superintelligence.
Director of the School of Computing; Pratt & Whitney Chair Professor of CSE; Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor
Dr. Rajasekaran received his M.E. degree in Automation from the Indian Institute of Science (Bangalore) in 1983, and his Ph.D. degree in Computer Science from Harvard University in 1988. His research interests include Big Data, AI and Machine Learning, Quantum Computing, Bioinformatics, Algorithms, Data Mining, Randomized Computing, and HPC. He has published over 350 research articles in journals and conferences. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE), and the Asia-Pacific Artificial Intelligence Association (AIAA). He is also an elected member of the Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering and has been recognized among the world’s top 2% of scientists in 2024, according to Stanford/Elsevier’s Top 2% Scientist Rankings.
PhD Candidate in Theoretical Chemistry
Anthony is a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow and Ph.D. candidate at Yale University. He develops methods that combine quantum computing and machine learning for drug discovery, with recent work spanning hybrid quantum-classical transformers for molecular generation, quantum neural networks for toxicity prediction, and generative AI with reinforcement learning for quantum circuit design in quantum chemistry.
Postdoctoral Associate, Department of Physics, Yale University
As a Postdoctoral Associate in the Department of Applied Physics at Yale University, Dr. Vu works with Prof. Charles H. Ahn. His research centers on quantum materials and correlated electron systems, with a recent focus on superconducting nickelates and topological semimetals. He received his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from The Ohio State University, where he investigated thermal and thermoelectric transport phenomena in topological materials. Dung has authored publications in Nature Materials, Science Advances, and Advanced Materials, and holds patents in solid-state thermal switch technologies.
Post Doctoral Researcher
Tien-Tien received her PhD in Electrophysics from National Chiao Tung University, Taiwan (R.O.C.), in January 2020. She then worked as a postdoctoral fellow at the National Synchrotron Radiation Research Center, Taiwan, where she focused on developing femtosecond time-resolved spectroscopies, including microscopy and ARPES. She later joined Stockholm University, Sweden, as a postdoctoral researcher, where she developed a new phase retrieval method for THz reflection spectroscopy. Currently, she is a postdoctoral researcher in Alexander Balatsky's group at UConn and Nordita, working on theoretical simulations of light–matter interactions in superconducting materials and devices. Her research interests center on the dynamics of light–matter interaction in quantum materials.
Principal Technical Fellow
Dr. Surana has 16+ years of R&D experience in the areas of nonlinear dynamical systems and controls, machine learning, optimization, autonomy, and quantum computing with broad range of applications in aerospace and defense. He has authored 80+ peer reviewed publications and has 9 patents granted and 20+ patents pending. He has won several awards/honors including Padmakar P. Lele Outstanding Research and Thesis Award at MIT, RTRC’s Technical Excellence Award, and Grainger Grant by the Grainger Foundation and National Academy of Engineering. He is a member of Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering and IEEE Senior member. Dr. Surana received a B.Tech. in Mechanical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology Bombay in 2000, his M.S. in Mechanical Engineering and M.A. in Mathematics both from Pennsylvania State University in 2002 and 2003, respectively, and his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2007.
Director of Technologies, Emerging Technologies
A former Marine who also has a PhD in nuclear/particle physics and a strong background in Deep Learning and Machine Learning, Dr. Kunkel is an accomplished physicist and AI architect with nearly 15 years of experience in R&D and scientific research roles. His expertise includes researching and reporting on emerging technologies, cloud computing, creating AI architecture, training AI models, and developing hybrid quantum AI models. Dr. Kunkel earned a PhD in Nuclear and Particle Physics from Old Dominion University, and is certified in Quantum Science, Networking and Communications from the University of Chicago as well as several certifications pertaining to Quantum Computing from Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Managing Director
Dr. Carle is the Managing Director of the Yale Quantum Institute. A French rocket scientist and engineer with a background in theater, Florian transitioned to quantum science, where he develops science and art outreach programs for the Yale and New Haven communities. His goal is to demystify quantum physics and science in general, making them enjoyable and accessible to inspire new generations to pursue careers in STEM.